A Special Look Behind the Scenes of Broadway’s Hit Merrily We Roll Along Revival

It was never guaranteed that a Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along would succeed.

Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical about how three friends’ lives, dreams, and relationships change over the course of 20 years has a somewhat notorious reputation. Originally staged in 1981, between the successes of Sweeney Todd and Sunday in the Park With George, Merrily was a rare flop in Sondheim’s oeuvre. After a rocky series of previews, the show opened to scathing reviews—many of which praised the score but lambasted the book’s cynical tone—and closed after 16 performances.

More than 40 years later, the first-ever Broadway revival of Merrily has become the hottest ticket of the season. First mounted with Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez at the New York Theater Workshop in the winter of 2022, the production received a rapturous response and quickly sold out. And now, what was supposed to be a limited 12-week run on Broadway has been extended multiple times, giving audiences ample opportunity to rediscover one of Sondheim’s most misunderstood masterpieces. (The show’s final performance is set for Sunday, July 7.)

“This material is so transcendent, it’s teaching me something new every day,” says Groff. “Every single person in the cast is a genius, and our director [Maria Friedman] has stripped the entire thing back to its purest form. What Stephen Sondheim and George Furth wrote is so extremely personal, and she has made it personal for all the performers, and therefore, the audience.”

Below, the cast of Merrily We Roll Along takes Vogue behind-the-scenes at the Hudson Theatre.